


Dream Through A Few More Teas

by wormwoodwrites



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crushes, Daydreaming, Domestic Fluff, Fantasizing, Fluff, M/M, Martin has it bad and is pining in front of god and everyone, Pining, Unrequited Crush, based on the lovely jon w long hair comic, more to be added in the future!!, not for too long though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23648809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormwoodwrites/pseuds/wormwoodwrites
Summary: Martin's mind seems much too preoccupied at work, and at home. Jon's hair tie breaking doesn't seem to slow matters much at all...A fic based off of this lovely comic!! https://twitter.com/Tatumsdrawing/status/1234021946825658368?s=19Takes place around early season 2
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 8
Kudos: 71





	Dream Through A Few More Teas

**Author's Note:**

> I am Very Much in love w/ that comic, so by nature I gotta project that softness somewhere. 
> 
> I may do future chapters depending on how this one goes!!! I hope you enjoy c: 
> 
> Also I definitely recommend following the artist who made the original comic!!! Their art is amazing!!! <3 
> 
> Check out their full work of TMA comics right here: https://twitter.com/Tatumsdrawing/status/1240842363318108161?s=19

  
It didn’t exactly start this way.   
Not with as much fumbling, or uneasy eyes shifting everywhere that never felt quite right. The carpet was never a good place to stare, the ceilings didn’t prove any more interesting the 100th time over, and his desk turned into a muddy pool of too many letters. Too much information, too many numbers, too many highlighted ‘leads’ sloughing off into a puddle of black lines and dotted ‘ _i’s_.’  
  
There was always a part of Martin that had remained a bit wistful. Throughout his dips in adolescence, he’d never dropped that corner of himself that remained fascinated with the idea of certain things. Longing for another human, yearning for the soft gaze beneath lidded eyes right before you lean into one another.   
He grew dizzy in his short-term relationships as a teen, or in his earlier college years. It became a habit to isolate and keep a bit more private in his adulthood. Be it a lack of energy, or simply a lack of openings in his schedule or space, some days he found that loneliness was easiest to manage. No phoning in, asking too many questions, no room to reveal his more unpleasant traits.  
  
That’s not to say he didn’t think of other people in his circle.    
There was always that one little spark, no matter how many times he had been tempted to suffocate it, that kept him warmer on his own.   
The thought of having someone’s hand to place on his own, or having someone to lay at his hip while he traces all sorts of shapes onto their back through a warm sweater, asking them to guess which one he was doing. Maybe they’d kiss. Maybe they’d sleep in a tangle of limbs, buried under one too many comforters, their lips pressed to the skin of his collar while this unnamed partner snored.   
  
After all of his mundane years in adulthood, he hadn’t given much, if any thought to who this ‘they’ could be. It was moreover the comfort in the concept, on days he was too reminiscent of watching old romance films as a child. Growing up with a big heart wasn’t a reward, at least to him. It sat more like a burden that provided too much.   
Too much empathy, too much concern, a bit too much on the side of feelings that he’d rather not tap into. Some things were best left under wraps, where they would certainly  _ not  _ rise up after one too many Ben Shaws with gin.   
  
On occasion, though, it proved entertaining to swim through on a long day at the office. When the head space was fitting enough, that is.    
Sometimes days would draw on much too long, sometimes Martin’s temper would fall in half into his lap on the bus home, but some days it was alright. Could always be better of course, not as though The Magnus Institute was a rewarding job. No ideal connections, tense working environment, but most deadlines were lax enough.   
  
It started with a standard day, one falling into the afternoon. Typically he would wrap up work around 8:30 PM, but it varied. Some bus routes only went to 10 PM, so he had to watch his time. However, 8 years of working at the same establishment made it easy to keep up a routine.   
Martin had been working on a few follow up emails to statement-givers, while keeping an ear open to the police station, dipping in and out as they had been lately..    
Even with the day seeming slim enough for an eight hour shift, Martin hadn’t fully decompressed on his lunch break as much as he’d hoped he could. It was difficult to, and his appetite had been nothing short of dull since Prentiss. He’d had a few cups of some high caffeine tea an hour or two earlier, and now his body was truly coming down from the physical and mental pressure of overworking and being over-stimulated.   
All of his papers were done. Every email answered and book marked as needed.   
  
Hunching over his desk, Martin sat with his eyes hooded as the warming sky pooled in through the sparsely spaced institute windows, causing all of the dust to dance. Not as though it had never been there, but you were just now acknowledging its presence with a new perspective.    
He exhales into the empty space, watching lazily as each spec twirled and spiraled in the thin veil of light, projecting across the room in an almost rectangular prism. Once his breath hit the beam, the little dots of dust seemed to explode with life and movement, shifting about in a flurry up to the ceiling.   
  
Almost done with the day. There were only about two hours left to push through. That was just four spans of thirty minutes, right? Then, an hour commute, then.. Hm.   
  
Possibly sleep.   
  
Sleep sounded quite nice.    
  
His head was pressing up against his half closed laptop, and a majority of his sticky-note marked paperwork was creasing near the edge of his desk, one hand laid outstretched as he nudged his face into the crook of his elbow. Ten minutes may have passed.   
Not far off, the sound of the pantry door being opened and closed signaled Martin to squeeze his eyes half open, his gaze now fixing on the door frame to Jon’s office, bathed in a dimming, warm amber light. He yawned hoarsely into his shoulder, toes curling in his shoes, before reaching to take a sip of tea to wake himself.   
It tasted dusty, from sitting so long. 

  
His hands were working to adjust the papers at his desk corner, just as he saw Jon turn from the hall, mug in hand, looking like a Gustave Courbet painting. Martin could say with ease, he hadn’t felt his heart hammer in his chest like that for a few months.   
Half trying to stand, Martin shifts his weight onto the desk and pushes half of his papers directly onto the floor in a messy flutter.  
In addition to not seeing Jon in person for almost three days, the combination of emotions that began flooding in proved to be strong.  
  
“Wh- Jon!?”  
  
His mouth acts before his mind could. He’d never, not once, in the five years they’d worked in the same building, seen Jon with his hair out of a bun. It cascaded down his shoulders in fluffy, black coils, peppered with twisting grey spirals that formed streaks of light in uneven spaces.  
It hugged his shoulders and neck _beautifully_.   
He looked.. He looked like a lot of words that Martin could hardly catch up with in his mind. Winsome, heavenly, stunning, divine, dreamy-  
  
Jon’s attention is caught by the shuffling of pages onto the carpet, and he looks too tired to give much of a reaction to the situation. His eyebrows slowly knit tighter, forming his already stressed expression together fittingly as his footsteps slow.   
  
“Martin,” his voice starts, exasperated, “Please pick those up.”  
  
Standing with a sudden start of energy he was sure hadn’t been present before, Martin pushes from his seat and tries to shimmy from the space given behind his desk. He can already feel an intense bloom of heat across his cheeks and ears, and it’s difficult to think above the haze.  
  
“O-oh God, sorry..” His voice forces out, sounding a smidge strained.  
  
“I-I didn’t mean to- it was an accident.”  
  
Martin manages to push his chair back in haphazardly, stepping in a half circle around it while Jon peers over, seeming a bit uninterested in Martin's reaction.   
  
“I was just surprised.” he finishes, exhaling through his nose strongly as he kneels to begin picking up the now disorganized mess of sheets.  
  
Jon ambles over idly, watching for a second or two, before kneeling slightly to grab a small pile of papers. It’s clear that his knees seem to protest, but he tries not to show it.  
Martin seems to almost loom over him in height, but it’s never felt as evident as it did right then.  
  
He was.. Remarkably close. A few silver and black hairs fall down in front of Jon’s face, and Martin can see the curve of his thick lashes, the soft movement of his pupils darting across the floor as he gathered a few pages.  
Martin can all but smell that faint ‘Jon’ smell, the one he only gathered in passing, or in his office. He smelled like too much tiger balm and a bit like mothballs, but not unpleasantly so. It was an interesting, comfortable combination, vetiver, camphor, clove, and cajeput oil hiding under it all. He now felt dizzy for a multitude of reasons.  
  
Jon was the first to break the silence out of the two, trying to balance the papers he’d lifted in one hand against his thin palm, still hot tea in the other.  
  
“What surprised you so much?” He prompts, clearing his throat soon after. Martin noticed how deflated he seemed, and it appeared as though he hadn’t shaved.   
  
Martin’s tongue feels like lead in his mouth, and the papers drooping against his fingers prove to be the only anchor he has now.  
  
“Uh.”  
  
His voice is smaller than intended, but the way that Jon looks captivates him more than he’d thought possible, with each curl hanging down across his burgundy sweater vest, like vines on an arching stone wall. He feels closer than before.  
  
“Well, uh your hai-” Martin stops, swallowing stiffly,   
“Uhm.”  
  
His skin feels red hot, the heat creeping up his eyes, further around his ears, down the back of his neck. It reaches his shoulder blades, and only presses further.  
  
“I thought I saw a worm. But..” Martin's fingers firm around the papers, now rising the edges of the sheets to cover his mouth. Half in an attempt to hide his curling lips, half to shield himself from just about nothing.  
  
“I was wrong.”  
  
He’s quiet for a second or two, and the room feels heavy. The light had now dimmed down to a dull violet, with the sun dipping finally behind the horizon line.   
The old stained glass lamp in the corner fills the space with a warmer, more red orange haze than before.  
  
Grip now tightening against the printer paper, he can’t find anywhere comfortable to put his eyes. Not Jon’s sweater crease, not the wall, oh god- certainly not his jaw. Dusted with the hardly noticeable stubble beneath his sideburns. Absolutely not.  
  
“I uh.. Don’t think I’ve seen you with your hair down.”   
  
His eyes settle uncomfortably onto the old persian carpet lining against the chipping trim of the wood floor. He can feel his flush creeping across his shoulders and back, like a steady stream of water down a mountainside.   
  
“Yes.” Jon exhales, straightening the papers in his hand once again, seeming to examine them without much thought. He kneads at the inside of his cheek for a second, before speaking again.  
  
“Unfortunately, my hair tie broke today.”   
  
He straightens his neck with a small crack and shakes his head just a touch, trying to move his hair out of his face without using either hand, and Martin physically tries to repress huff, given he’d been all but holding his breath these last 15 seconds.  
  
Extending his arm out to the taller of the two, Jon hands off his papers delicately and gives Martin a firm nod, looking up to him with a gaze that could have been encouraging, but still unwavering from when he first entered the room. Probably much too tired to do anything more.  
  
“Right, well, try to be more careful, Martin.” Jon adds, before slipping off into his recording space, tea in hand, the door shutting behind him with a groaning creak, the same sound it always had.  
  
The only light from outside was now from the same dim street lamps that had always been there.  
  
Martin set the pages down with a light thump onto his laptop, and stood breathless, staring at the doorknob for what felt like hours. In the grand scheme, it could’ve only been thirty seconds. He gives a few airy laughs into his palms, then proceeds to shove his glasses up the bridge of his nose, trying aimlessly to bury the now overbearing heat that had spread across his body.  
Jon’s hair was so much longer than he’d ever imagined, had the man put thought into getting it to a certain length, or did he simply not mind however it turned out?  
It had been nearly a year, perhaps two years since it’d been shoulder length. He didn’t wear it up much then. Now, however, Martin could only ever think of Jon with his hair in a messy, somewhat loose bun.  
  
What would he do when he got home, after a long day?  
  
Would Jon untwist his bun and comb through the slight tangles with his long fingers, then brush it through before bed? Or, would he simply fall asleep with it still in a bun?  
The latter seemed more realistic to Jon’s state as of late, and Martin couldn’t feign the thought of gently waking him to untangle it and brush it, remove his hair tie, and let him go right back to bed. How would Jon look, laid up comfortably in bed, cheek half smushed with his curling hair splaying like a halo against his pillow?  
  
‘Shit, wait-’  
  
No. Not at work. He couldn’t be having these thoughts, at work, in front of his door. Not happening.  
  
Deep breath in, Martin shuffled around to his desk chair and pulled it out, trying to ease into it steadily as he took hold of the papers slumped against his laptop. Without too much thought, he organized them back again. Eyeing his tea, more tired than ever, and pressed his thumb to the hardly warm side, heaving out a sigh.  
  
He really, really, _desperately_ needed a nap.   
  


The rest of the day was slow enough. He didn’t have much more follow up to do on the cases he was assigned, and the rest of the shift was made up tidying where he could. The pantry, the main entrance to their floor of The Archives, the desk spaces he shared with Tim and Sas _ h _ a, a few shelves. He looked to busy himself by making a to-do list for the next day, but it was all in all a steady night after 7 PM. Eerily so, but that was never an uncommon feeling.   
  
  
  
He spent his ride home feeling a little too light, and it was difficult for his mind to avoid veering off into dangerous territory. Martin felt as though he was yet again at a mental tug-of-war with himself, as it happened whenever his feelings for Jon surfaced too strongly.    
Too intensely, meaning that his heart got a hold of his brain over the smallest things.    
  
For example, that one instance where Jon’s fingers brushed his shoulder when trying to set down a stack of paperwork, or, when he came into work wearing cuban heels that clicked through each room. Or, that one day where he wore a knit cardigan over his usual button down and vest. The one time he cleaned one of his favorite mugs for him while on his lunch.   
  
Every time something small added up, Martin spent as long as a few weeks dwelling on them, and mentally revisiting them here and there, as though carding through an old, well loved novel with feathered, yellowing pages.   
He’d nearly missed his bus stop from daydreaming, and by the time he’d walked to his car, the dull haze over his mind had only increased.   
  
Martin fumbled with his keys for the few moments it took to shimmy his locked door open, given how busted the old thing was. Not that a 1982 Chevette was built to last, anyway.    
Once inside, he spends the drive home playing his music a touch over the usual volume, trying not to grip the steering wheel to death as his mind threatens to wander.    
Short drive, he’d repeat in his head. It was a short drive back. That was it. Six minutes with enough forgiving traffic lights.    
  
Eventually met with his apartment, he slumps his book bag against the couch and turns on the lights in his room down the hall, settling out all the contents of his pockets that he’d need later. Phone, keys, not much else..    
He has a late microwave dinner, and works to fill his thoughts with whatever could occupy them that wasn’t Jon adjacent. Tidying up his bathroom, unloading his half busted dishwasher, and setting up things for his shower routine. When this wasn’t entirely working, Martin shoved on his bulky headphones- the kind that go over your ears fully- and proceeded to set his music on shuffle. He wanders to his room to idly fold some laundry, with a melancholic feeling sitting deep in his chest. Every second that ticked by, he further fought the cacoethes of fantasizing.

  
Volume up by three.    
He folds a pair of socks.    
Volume up by one more notch.    
He folds together a sleep shirt.    
Volume up, one last bit,   
He folds together an old grey jumper..   
  
He imagines, briefly, what Jon may look like with the grey cashmere hugging his thin shoulders, more like a blanket than a sweater.    
  
Martin gives a rather sharp intake of breath and pushes up from his bed with a start of energy, now hurriedly stuffing the sweater into his drawer, among the other small odds and ends he’d compiled.    
  
A shower is what he needed, right. That would prove distraction enough from his thoughts.    
  
Fifteen minutes drip away like 5, and he’s been standing in front of his mirror, half dressed, staring for the better part of ten of those. Martin can’t mask the thought of how he looked to another individual, and if they, no, he, would find his appearance at all like Martin saw him. His confidence had planted a deep seed of doubt long, long ago, that that couldn’t have been possible, but..    
The thought of Jon cupping his cheeks and running his thin fingers through his short, feathery black hair crops up in Martin's mind, or running one of his open palms down the curve of his side. Laid out like a plain with winding stretch marks, and a smattering of beauty marks to accompany them. Their foreheads would press together, and they would see one another clearly. Their negative thoughts unobtrusive, only thinking,  _ feeling-  _

  
The thought drags a soft, unwavering breath from his nose, and he has to force the thoughts back. Far, far back, right where the other ones just like it resided.   
They may float up again at any time, but that was an issue for his future self. As he'd always said, and always foolishly believed.

He hadn't the space in his paycheck to be racking up the water bill as he was, but some nights a long shower was needed. Martin vaguely thinks how the water may have been too hot for any other person, but pushes it away as soon as his mind will allow, now curling his fingers in small circles across his scalp to distribute his conditioner.

Thirty minutes pass of all-too-thoughtful basking, feeling the water forging his silhouette cool off with each passing minute, as he grew lost in dreamy notions of things that would never be.

Stumbling in a sleepy trance, all warm skin and towel-fluffed hair, he crawls up into bed in a languid fashion, not caring to feign away a big yawn. There was something about a warm shower and a big sleep shirt that made his mind feel safe. No matter how tense the day was, that small act was always enough to melt down Martin's unease in less than an hour.

He sets up his alarm, slips on a smaller pair of noise cancelling headphones, and peruses through his Spotify until he finds a suitable playlist. The smallest creak of an upstairs neighbor, the sound of cars navigating the quiet side roads, or even the light groan of pipes settling, these all were quick ways to activate further distress in his mind. Especially since he was still adjusting to being back home, it was better safe than sorry to quell what anxieties he could. 

Once set up, Martin gathers the pillow beneath his head into his arms, pressing his cheek down into the cool cotton as the delicate humming of music begins to flood his ears. It's a soft acoustic guitar, then some other string instrument he can't fully discern.. 

_ Whisper in my ear everything my dear _

_ Every wicked legend that you carry _

His breath begins to slow, his blunt fingernails now pressing into the dip of his blankets, mind wandering. Not wandering as far as full strides, but more like small, probing steps. The quilts behind his back are bunched into uneven shapes that crescent around his body, fitting comfortably around each curve and nook that his comforter didn't take up already. 

Martin imagines, vaguely, that the figure would be made up of the man he loved so dearly.

He thinks of Jon sleeping soundly beside him, a hand draped over the curve of Martin's waist, their fingers fit perfectly together. The thought of Jon turning the other way because his arm falls numb makes Martin bite the inside of his cheek with a smile. He'd shift his weight just the same and spoon Jon in turn, pressing a smile into his hair as they both drifted off. 

He works to push off the dull aching in his chest, and falls into unconsciousness instead, with the thought of Jon still warm and present in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Martin is listening to ' Archive Series Volume No.1 ' by Iron and Wine in that last bit! It's the song Eden if you'd like to give it a listen. 
> 
> Dian Hong tea flavor profile:  
> earthy and woody, with a light honey taste. It can also taste like a maple syrup, with a malty start and a sweet, light floral aroma.
> 
> Sidenote my own hair tie is so close to breaking as I write this, godspeed.


End file.
